Overview
Since the landing of the Dawning Star on Eos, humanity has been
determined to create a new home on this alien world. As Dawning Star
City grew out of the body of the Dawning Star, the families of the
terraformers and colonists realized the need for quality education of the
children of generation Omega as well as the children of generation Eos.
Initially, education was limited to home study, and a number of small
rooms set aside in the ship. As the children born on Eos began to grow
and the other 2 million were awakened from their cryogenic sleep, the city
founders realized that the existing education system would not be
sufficient. They developed a system for the complete range of schooling
1
ABOUT DAWNING STAR
Dawning Star was the first full-scale science fiction campaign setting built on d20
Modern and powered by the Future ruleset from Wizards of the Coast. The
critically-acclaimed setting was nominated for an ENnie for Best d20 Game. You
can learn more and download free material by visiting www.dawningstar.com.
ABOUT TERRAFORMER
The Terraformer line of products from Blue Devil Games presents new material
designed for Dawning Star but usable in most science-fiction campaigns. Each
entry will offer a new prestige class, xenomorph, talent tree, feat, weapon, etc.
and advice on using it into your campaign and using it to shape your world.
Structure
Dawning Star University is divided into a number of major colleges of
study with different departments. The major colleges of DSU are:
College of Agriculture
College of Art and Design
College of Business
College of Education
College of Engineering and Science
College of Human Studies
College of Technology and Xenological studies
College of Transportation operations and technology
Graduate Studies
Each college offers a large number of classes. They also include new
disciplines focusing on understanding the new species, technology, and
history of Eos and the surrounding system. The most common DSU
3 curriculum for new students provides a good grounding in science,
technology, and the humanities as well as an introduction to more
advanced disciplines such as xeno-political relations and nano-
cybernetics. Students are advised to wait until the second semester their
sophomore year before they declare a major.
Physical Campus
The campus consists of five towers of modern architecture, situated in a
cross configuration. The buildings are connected by garden skyways at
varying heights.
The North Tower houses the majority of the administrative offices and
housing for those employees. The penthouse of the North Tower serves
as the dean's living quarters and is home to a ceremonial garden where
graduation has been held every year since the institution opened.
The East and West towers are student dormitories, capable of
providing the student body of 30,000 with all their domestic needs. Each
dorm room is a suite with a living room and kitchen with four spartan
bedrooms, which house four students. Each floor has two co-ed
bathrooms. Both towers also include cafeterias, a few commercial dining
areas, the school bookstore, and other services. On the lower levels of
each building are a gymnasium, basketball courts, and a swimming pool.
School policy discourages students from owning personal vehicles; there
are no parking facilities for the student body. The roof of the East Tower
also houses the student rec center. The grounds at the base of that
building offer a garden (maintained by the botanical college) and beach
volleyball and street basketball courts. The West Tower roof is home to
the library, which contains over 27 million electronic volumes, including a
duplicate database of the U.S. Library of Congress and other important
archives of Old Earth. A well-tended Zen garden also decorates the roof
of the building.
The South Tower provides housing for the faculty and their families as
well as the department offices. The roof of the tower holds the schools
cathedral, a structure similar in design to the chapel of the old United
States Air Force Academy. The cathedral sits amid a beautiful flower
garden.
The Central Tower is the location of all of the classrooms and
laboratories, as well as a state-of-the-art medical facility, particle
accelerator (located underground), and observatory and satellite control
center (used for numerous classes, including AP4017 Orbital Terraforming
Techniques).
In addition to the main campus, Dawning Star University also has
annexes at the Dawning Star Spaceport and numerous archeological and
research stations around the globe. Several other institutions on Eos--
such as the vocational school in Iron Scar--started as Dawning Star
University Distance Learning Centers before becoming more specialized.
University Resources
Dawning Star University has access to a multimillion-credit budget, which it
4 uses to provide the most advanced equipment to their students and
faculty. This includes a pair of hummingbird shuttles, a number of AV, a
few deep-sea exploration ships, and advanced scientific, engineering, and
computer systems second only to the government facilities. As a rule
however, the university budget is not used for weapon purchases. The
DSU security force is actually a specialty posting for members of the
DSU police force, and security for school archeological expeditions is
provided by EDF troops. The EDF ROTC does not keep any military-
grade equipment on campus. Much of the schools funding comes from
government grants and private donations; Maximillian Dagos is one of the
schools most notable patrons.
Research
This check represents what information a character can find about
Dawning Star University through EosNet, court and public records, and
library research. The difficulty of finding this information might change
depending on how the character researches it. The DCs might be lower if
the character hacks into the Dawning Star Republic municipal court
mainframe. However, there is far more risk involved, then going through
news archives. This table represents general information that is available
about Dawning Star University.
DC 1: The Dawning Star University EosNet site contains information
about enrollment, curriculum, and current activities that the university is
sponsoring.
DC 5: Access to class schedules for the Universitys aerospace flight
training and departure times for the deep-sea exploration missions.
7 DC 10: The budget of the xeno-archeological expeditions, making it one
of the largest single expenditures and the largest source of extra revenue
for the university through research grants and patents.
DC 15: A number of students have been expelled over the years for
theft of xeno-artifacts. The most well known case was the discharge of
Professor Neil Pritchard for unauthorized use of limited resources, illegal
possession of Eotian artifacts, and black market sale of same. Since
Pritchards discharge, there have been two lawsuits by students that said
they were framed and expelled with only circumstantial evidence. In both
cases, the university has settled out of court.
DC 20: Dawning Star University has been subject to a recent wave of
industrial espionage. Several technological innovations by the EFL may
have been projects stolen from Dawning Star University. For example,
the new revolutionary engine technology that researchers in Rogers Point
are working on is very similar to a set of plans promulgated by staff
member Dr. Benjamin Ganesh. Dr. Ganesh claimed that the engine
designs were developed in connection with an archeological expedition he
led near Iron Scar. He stated that the translation of the plans was on his
personal infocomp, when his pod crashed. When it rebooted the entire
drive was empty. The university could find no evidence of sabotage. Dr.
Ganesh has previously been labeled the doctor that cries wolf; he has
made a number of prior claims of discoveries that end up going missing.
DC 25: Various intercepted podcasts and EosNet chatter describes an
EFL intelligence operation in progress at Dawning Star University. Since
all the traffic is in some sort of code, there is no indication what the target
of the operation is. The interesting thing about each of the transmissions is
that it ends with a question mark.
NPCs
Following, are two NPCs associated with the University. Depending on
which side of the fence the PCs sit, they could serve as either allies or
enemies.
New Feat
The following feat is suitable for some character backgrounds.
DSU Alumni
You are a graduate of Dawning Star University.
Prerequisites: Student or Scholar occupation, Dawning Star Familiarity.
Benefit: You have a contact at the university who provides you
information about a particular area. You should develop the character
concept of the contact with the GM. The contact has a +12 bonus to one
of the following skills: Computer Use, Craft (any), Decipher Script,
Knowledge (any), or Research. Once per week, you may communicate
with your contact to gain information related to his area of expertise.
Essentially, you use your contacts skill bonus in place of yours for one
check. You must have some means of communicating with the contact,
e.g, telephone, e-mail, face-to-face contact, etc.
Additionally, all bonuses you gain from the Dawning Star Familiarity feat
are doubled.
Special: This feat may be taken multiple times. Each time it is taken you
gain an additional contact (but gain no additional bonuses related to the
Dawning Star Familiarity feat).
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